From Ruin to Recovery A Survivor's Tale of Hurricane Sandy with Doug Quinn

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
George Siegal (00:00):
Having your house wiped out by a disaster is not
a comfortable conversation tohave with someone.
Most of us probably don't thinkit will ever happen to us, but
when it does, it changes yourlife forever, and the road back
to normal is a long one.
My guest today is Doug Quinn.
He was a victim of HurricaneSandy, which hit New Jersey back
in 2012.

(00:21):
It took seven years for him toget back in his house and, as
you will learn today, it's anexperience you never want to
have.
Once you hear his story, myhope is you will take some type
of action and try to prevent itfrom happening to you.
I'm George Siegal, and this isHomeowners Be Aware, the podcast
that teaches you everything youneed to know about being a

(00:43):
homeowner.
Doug, thank you so much forjoining me today.

Doug Quinn (00:47):
Thank you for having me, George.

Yeah, you ended up being and people will see
when Built the Last Buyer Bewarecomes out one of the stars of
the film.
I want to thank you for beingin our documentary film and
sharing your story, but forpeople who aren't familiar with
it, you were a victim inHurricane Sandy and that was a
really major turning point inyour life, wasn't it?

Doug Quinn (01:10):
It was.
I mean, I just you know I had ahosy life before then a single
financial advisor making goodmoney living on the beach, and
basically this came in and itupended my whole world.
I mean, obviously I allowed itto a degree, but there are many
things that were out of mycontrol and we've learned things

(01:32):
that would curl your hair.

Now, as somebody who's learned so much, let's
just go back before that, whenyou were living in this house
and you knew you're on the EastCoast and there are hurricanes,
there are nor'easters, there areall kinds of bad things that
can happen.
Did those ever enter yourthought process?

Doug Quinn (01:47):
100%.
I mean I come out of theinsurance world, I'm a financial
advisor for three decades, so Iam very risk management
oriented.
So you know, obviously I hadresearched.
The house had been built in thelate fifties.
It had never flooded onceduring that time.
But just to be safe, you know,I bought the maximum legal

(02:09):
amount of flood insurance that Icould buy.
I mean, if I could have boughtmore, I would have bought more.
I only had to buy enough tocover my mortgage.
I bought double that amount.
And you know, look, I looked atthe patterns Is there?
Is this a significant floodrisk?
Look, I looked at the patterns.
Is this a significant floodrisk?
It did not appear to be, sincethere had been no flooding for
60 plus years.
And then I then went furtherand insured myself, transferring

(02:33):
the risk to be on the cautiousside.

Did you ride out the storm in your house or did
you evacuate?

Doug Quinn (02:39):
I rode out until the water got to about my ankles or
close to my knees, out untilthe water got to about my my
ankles or close to my knees.
Uh, I had evacuated the yearbefore we had hurricane irene
come through.
You know they said that wasgoing to be the end, all be all.
I evacuated and it, you knowjust it came into the street in
front of my house.
It wasn't that big of a dealand I was kind of regretted,

(02:59):
like abandoning my house.
So I said when sandy came, youknow again, here's the next end,
all be all.
Uh, I'm going to stay there,coming through with, uh, you
know, evacuating ourneighborhood.
And I just said I'm going tostay, stick it out.
And uh, you know that literallydid turn out to be the end, all
be all.

Now, what would you say the mindset of your
neighbors are?
I mean, I have a kind of asimilar living situation in that
I live in Tampa, Florida, andwe're the next big bullseye that
everybody always talks about.
But I would say there's a verycomplacent attitude from a lot
of my neighbors.
Most people don't think it'sgoing to happen to them.
Most of them don't havegenerators.
Most of them probably don'thave a plan.

(03:38):
What did you find in yourneighborhood?
Were people caught off guard?
Were they surprised?
This is the cost of living inparadise.
Were people caught off guard?

Doug Quinn (03:45):
Were they surprised, were they?
This is the cost of living inparadise.
Nobody expected it.
I mean, new Jersey doesn't gethit with a lot of hurricanes and
again, this neighborhood hadn'tflooded basically since it was
built, so no one expected it.
Nobody was prepared, and wehave a lot of elderly people in
our neighborhood and a lot ofthem, because it's on the water,
are second homes down here onthe Jersey Shore.
On the water are second homesdown here on the Jersey shore.
So most people evacuated, but Idon't think they were prepared

(04:13):
for any of the other facets interms of protecting their
property.
So we were all sort of caughtby surprise at the ferocity of
the storm and how hard it hit us.

Okay, so Sandy blows through, you have major
damage.
What was your thought rightafter the storm?
Were you optimistic that, hey,I have this coverage, I'm going
to be okay, we're going to be onour feet again.
What was your thought process?

Doug Quinn (04:46):
legal amount of insurance.
I'm good.
It's going to be four to sixmonths of difficult times.
It's going to be, you know,it's going to suck, to be fair,
uh, for about four or fivemonths or so, and then I'll be
up and running because I did theright thing and I paid for
insurance, um, and I really hadno way I mean to the point where
I had a land that it was hardto find.
You know you have.
You have tens of thousands ofpeople out of their homes.

(05:06):
It's hard to find a decentrental, and I had a 15 year old
daughter with me trying to becareful about what neighborhood
I'm in, what kind of quality ofa house that I'm in, and so it
took me.
I mean we lived out of our carfor a month and it took me
probably you know that time tofind a decent place for us to

(05:27):
live in, a rent to rent.
And the landlord wanted a yearlease and I was like no way I
got a quarter million dollars offlood insurance.
I will be home in four or fivemonths.
And the way I compromised withhim was like I'll tell you what
if I pay you, because I wasafraid of going back home and
owing this guy another sixmonths on the lease.
So I was like if I pay you ahundred dollars a month extra
and you'll let me go month tomonth, we did that and I paid

(05:49):
that man a hundred dollars amonth extra for seven years.
It took me seven to get home.

Now would you say you believe you might've been
one of those people that justfell through the cracks, or are
you more typical of how theinsurance company just doesn't
care?

Doug Quinn (06:10):
You know I can't say either of those cases are 100%
true.
I will say under nocircumstances will I allow
myself to fall through thecracks.
Okay, I'm educated, I'm aninvestment financial
professional.
I know a lot about theinsurance world.
You know, I'm a Marine Corpsveteran.
I fight everything.
I live in investment financialprofessional.
I know a lot about theinsurance world.
You know, I'm a Marine Corpsveteran.
I fight everything.
I live in an area of thecountry where we are very
comfortable fighting andadvocating for ourselves.

(06:33):
So I would not allow myself tofall through the cracks.
I did push, I did fight, I didadvocate for myself.
And nor would I say the otherend, that the insurance industry
doesn't care.
Look, there are a lot of reallygood people in the insurance
industry, people who take pridein what they do, people who take
pride in being able to show upwith a check at your lowest
moment.

(06:53):
But it only takes a few to gumup the whole works and what we
see is there's people that arestraight out greedy and straight
out fraudulent and they areactually looking to enrich
themselves by taking advantageof others and skewing the system
, tilting the table against theconsumer in order to get the

(07:14):
insurance company's favor, getcontracts, get jobs, get
promotions, and it doesn't takea lot of those people to really
have a negative impact on theconsumer's experience.

So if I hadn't met you, and I hadn't met a lot
of people that have experiencedbad things like you have, it
would be very hard to wrap myhead around how in the world
could it take seven years totake care of you?

Doug Quinn (07:42):
So what happens is you know the way it should work
and that way it has worked forpeople.
It's not like everybody getscheated.
There were people that had goodexperiences.
You know, you put in your claim, you basically cash your check,
you rebuild your home and yougo on your merry way.
Now, what are all the thingsthat can go wrong at every step

(08:05):
of the way?
On those, first, let's say thisyou know you go to cash your
check and maybe you don't havethe experience that all the TV
commercials tell you.
You know, my insurance companyoffered me 37 cents on the
dollar.
They sent an engineering firmout here to say that this was
not flood damage, it was earthmovement, which is shifting of

(08:27):
the supporting soils, and by the, that's what cracked my
foundation and flooded my housewith four feet of water.
And they, by the way, earthmovement is a convenient
exclusion from flood insurancethe shifting of the soils, even
though the soils might've shiftfrom thousands of tons of water
landing on it.
But that's, you know what theysaid.

(08:48):
So my insurance company offeredme 37 cents on the dollar.
And I'm thinking because, again, I grew up in the insurance
industry they just don't get it.
I just it's a mistake.
I just got to explain it tothem the right way.
I just got to show them theright pictures.
They don pictures.
And it took me a long time tocome from where I was a big firm
believer that everything worksout happily ever after for

(09:10):
insurance consumers to wow thisis not an accident, this is a
plan, this is a strategy thatpeople have in place.
So you know, working throughthat process, the insurance
piece you know turned out to bean absolute battle nightmare.
And then finding a builder isdifficult because, again, you're

(09:31):
in an area I love these thingswhere people are like use a
local builder, because theoutside guys, the storm chasers,
are fraudsters.
The guy in your neighborhoodwho builds five houses a year is
not putting 100,000 people backhome anytime soon.
You do not have enough organiccapacity to repair all those

(09:53):
properties, so you have to bringpeople in.
And, by the way, what zip codeyou live in does not determine
whether you're more likely tocommit fraud or not.
We had a guy right here in ourown town that was around for 20
years.
He was the basketball coach.
You know he stole a couple ofmillion dollars and left the
state from people.
You know so, but there ischallenges finding a builder and

(10:14):
, by the way, do you knowanything about building a house
from scratch?
I don't, most people don't.
I don't know what a roof costs.
I don't know what it's likewhere I should pay to demo my
own property.
I don't know what a roof costs.
I don't know what it's likewhere I should pay to demo my
own property.
I don't know what are goodwindows.
There's, like so many of thedecision trees, so that becomes

(10:38):
difficult.
And then the next step is, youknow, you, improvements and
having the right amount ofsetback around the property.
I mean, it's nightmare,nightmare, nightmare.
And in the meantime, you know,I'm trying to raise a teenage
daughter.
I'm trying to, you know, put adecent roof over her house.
I'm trying to make a living andpay the bills, and I'm doing

(11:00):
all this and all these fightsand all these battles and all
these things that I'm in noposition to buy, suited by
nature or education orexperience to do.
I'm doing all this.
We call it the decision paradox.
You are, you know, a thousanddecisions are suddenly heaped on
your plate, and I'm doing thiswhile traumatized and not in the

(11:21):
best frame of mind and not in agood position.
And that's the decision traumaparadox.
When you have a significantloss like that, the amount of
decisions that are heaped onyour plate, you know, go up
tenfold.
And there are decisions inareas you're not used to making
those decisions.
How do I build a house?
What's the right kind ofwindows?
You know what I mean.
How do I negotiate with thetown for permits and setbacks

(11:44):
and code, and how do I find theright builder?
How do I not get you know, allof these things fall in.
And that's happening while yourdecision-making ability is
compromised.
We see very smart people makevery dumb decisions.
So for me, I did what manytrauma survivors do slow it down

(12:07):
.
You know, like I'm notcomfortable making this decision
.
I don't have confidence.
Slow it down and whereas, youknow, I wound up having to go
through a grant program and getmoney from the federal
government which burned me.
I should have just got moneyfrom my insurance that I paid
for.
Should I have to rely ontaxpayer money for this?
It's, you know, it's reallyunconscionable that that happens

(12:30):
.
But basically what happens?
I should have been planning thebuilding of my house, while all
you know that was a multi-yearprocess, except I'm doing things
in like a linear method Well,I'm going to make this decision
and then I'm going to make thatdecision, and then, once I have
the things in, like a linearmethod, well, I'm going to make
this decision and then I'm goingto make that decision, and then
, once I have the money in myhands, then I'll do this Like I,
you know.

(12:50):
So part of it was I wasn't ableto do better.
Part of it was the system wasdysfunctional.
Part of it were many thingswere going wrong.
Part of it was I was way inover my head and again doing
that in an environment of traumawhere I'm just kind of baby,
stepping along and look, dealingwith depression.
I had days I couldn't get outof bed and again, I'm an

(13:11):
aggressive person, I'm a highenergy person.
That's not me.
So you know, we see what thesesurvivors go through and they
have no idea what's on thehorizon for them.

Now, when you talk about all the weight of all
those decisions and how youhave to do that, to me that
seems like that's a reason.
A lot of people get ripped offwhen they would assign their
benefits to somebody that theythought could handle all that
and take it off their shoulders.
So it's really a conflict there.
It's like, wow, I can't do allthis stuff.
Let me find somebody who can.
But you might be turning thatover to somebody who doesn't
have your best interest at heart.

Doug Quinn (13:45):
And that can happen all the way around Any business
transaction.
You have a possibility thatsomebody doesn't have your best
interest at heart, but disasterzones tend to bring those people
like flies to you know what.
And look, I know a lot ofpeople did very well with
assignment of benefits.
I didn't see that here, youknow, in Sandy I wasn't even

(14:06):
aware of the term until westarted watching it have
problems in Florida, becauseagain it takes it off like well,
now I don't have to go fight myinsurance company.
Here's a company that does itevery day and they'll do it.
And, granted, people did takeadvantage of it.
I think it was kind of theimpact was overblown.
I think the was kind of theimpact was overblown.
I think the insurance industryhas a great strategy of playing

(14:27):
victim and then they wind up,you know, getting well, it's so
much easier to deal with atraumatized homeowner who's
never done this before than itis to deal with a construction
company who does this every dayand knows what things actually
cost and can advocate for youand can say no, that's not a
$4,000 roof, that's a $10,000roof.

(14:48):
So I think it makes it veryeasy for the insurance industry
to cut those people out.
They seem to have a strategy ofcutting out the attorneys, the
public adjusters, thecontractors, who are all aligned
with the consumer at the timeof a claim, and then just making
it so it is just the consumerone-on-one.
Never done this before andtraumatized on top of that.

Is their lobbying group as powerful in New Jersey
as it is in Florida?
Because they pretty much seemto run the legislature down here
.

Doug Quinn (15:19):
They run the I mean a majority of the state of
Florida.
The leadership I mean I can'tnecessarily say because we don't
.
You know, what I've seen in NewJersey during Sandy was an
incredible Disappointment on thepart of our elected officials

(15:44):
our governor, who promised he'dbe with us till we got home and
then left the state to go runfor president.
Our insurance commissioner andDepartment of Insurance, our
attorney general, who sat ontheir hands and did nothing
while we all suffered and weknew tens of thousands of people
were getting taken advantage of.
And look again, I grew up inthe insurance industry.
If somebody said to me I'mcalling the insurance department
on you, I wouldn't have sleptfor a month.

(16:05):
If that happens, becausethey're this aggressive
department that's going to comedown and protect the consumer.
And then, when the time came,they did nothing.
And to be fair, flood insuranceis regulated on a federal level.
It's under the NFIP, is underthe Department of FEMA, it's a
FEMA responsibility.
But that does not mean that theinsurance department of my
state should not should havebeen advocating for us.

(16:27):
And they did not.
They literally sat on theirends.
So you know, was that becauseof a lobby?
Or maybe just because of a lackof, you know, bureaucratic lack
of effectiveness.
You know, we really didn'tstart digging into the impact of
the insurance lobby until wewatched Florida start to blow up
.
And then we're like, wow, thisis egregious.

I remember the image of Chris Christie's career
going down the toilet when hehugged Obama on the tarmac and
that image of it, which which tome OK that's that was not a
great optic for Republicans.
But to me the governor shouldbe advocating for people, but it
sounds like he kind of bailedon you guys, in your opinion
anyway.
So it doesn't sound likethere's any victory.

Doug Quinn (17:16):
The only true satisfaction is getting your
house fixed.
Yeah, and look, to be fair,somebody hugged a president
who's from the opposite party.
This is what we're supposed todo in a crisis we come together
and we put our differences asideand we work to help our
citizens.
So I thought that was.
Look, he hugged the guy.
That's great.
He hugged a bunch of victimsthat's great.
You know he really was on pointin the beginning, but you know

(17:38):
he was doing the right thing.
But then again it came to likewell, I've got all these people
who aren't home yet from thisdisaster, but I can go chase my
own political career and bepresident.
That's where he went off therails.

Yeah, that's probably pretty common.
So when you look back now, youfinally get back in your house.
Did you ever get the fairamount from the insurance, or
was it cobbled together otherways?
So I know it took seven yearsand it was horrible, but did you
eventually, with persistence,get what you were entitled to?
Or did you come away going, wow, I took seven years and those
guys still screwed me.

Doug Quinn (18:11):
No, I got.
I got enough to build a nicehouse here, okay, but it's you
know, the analogy I use is it'slike the Shawshank redemption,
right?
You look at the end of themovie and there's Morgan Freeman
walking on the Mexican beach toAndy and it's paradise, and

(18:32):
he's finishing up his old boatand it's amazing, and they're
going to live happily ever after.
And would you take that if Itold you what he had to do to
get there 20 years in prison,getting raped, getting beat, his
friends getting murdered,having to call through a
500-yard tunnel of shit to getto that point?
So you could look at the pointI'm at now and say and it

(18:56):
impacted, you know my otherresponsibilities.
You know, my daughter was 15,really needed a 100% dad, not a
50% dad, because I'm fightingall of this.
You know, my parents each gotsick and died during that time.
They needed a 100% son, not a25% son, because I'm here doing

(19:18):
this.
So you know, and of course, allof the damage I did to personal
relationships because I'm trauma, I mean literally, I considered
that disaster to be a form ofmental illness, because I really
was just, you know, having moodswings and mental health issues
and you know temper issues.
I can't go in to the localbranch of my bank.

(19:43):
I am banned for life because Ihad a disagreement with the
manager over something silly andrather than do what I know to
do, which is let's find a way towork out a compromise, where
everyone I blew up in the middleof the bank and she said leave,
if you ever come back I willcall the police.
And it's 10 years later andthat still exists.

(20:03):
And then same thing.
I'm working with our governor'steam trying to.
You know, we did a lot withadvocating for the other
survivors, calmly educating himLike that's an insensitive thing

(20:23):
to say about the people who'vegone through such a trauma and
aren't being treated well bytheir state government.
I blew up, I'm cursing in frontof female I mean, it was just
inappropriate and I had to gooutside and collect myself and
come in and apologize.
And that's not me, either ofthose instances.
That's not me.
You know what I mean.

I was going to say I'm glad I didn't piss you
off in our interview, but Ican't even imagine I've met
victims not as many as you have,but it just I see how they're
changed by the disaster and whatthat does and I don't think
it's like you're in an exclusiveclub that people don't really
understand if they're not in itbecause they haven't lived
through what you're livingthrough.

Doug Quinn (20:58):
Right and you will never be the same.
That's what we tell people.
You know, stop trying, cause Ikept thinking I gotta just get
back.
I can't wait, you know.
I remember, you know, meetingmy current girlfriend, and I
can't wait for you to meet who Ireally am.
This is not me, you know.
I can't wait to get back towhen life was normal, and there
is no going back.
You will be changed forever andfor these people, there is a

(21:19):
line in their life, before thedisaster, after the disaster,
and you will never be the same.
The best you can do is pick upthe pieces, learn your lessons,
put things back together as bestyou can and go forward.
But that's the idea Peopledon't understand.
They don't.
People are, you know, like, ifyou're looking, we try to tell
people in cat zones now, like ifyou see your spouse, you know,

(21:42):
using drugs or drinking way morethan they did, or losing their
temper, having mood swings, or,you know, pulling the covers
under their head till threeo'clock over their head, till
three o'clock in the afternoonin bed, and you know that's not
them, that's trauma and we wantto, you know, explain that to
people because of the fact thatthey don't think they're.
Just think, oh well, I'm aterrible person.

(22:03):
You know, I almost got into afight in Dunkin Donuts over a
parking spot with somebody.
Again, that's not me, and Ijust wish somebody had come in
before and say, look, you'regoing to see these things.
It's trauma, it's not.
You Give yourself a break,breathe back up and think you
know, is this really who I wantto be right now?
Or is this possibly the trauma?

speaking, and I need to, you know, do some
self-care to alleviate that.
So how do we fix this?
Because it seems like to meinsurance is is like when you go
to the casino and there's a lotof places you can buy chips, at
any table, any game, themoney's thrown at you, but
there's only a few places youcan collect it.
You have to walk to the back ofthe casino and get in line to
get your money, whatever youwant to leave with.
That's what insurance seemslike to me.

(22:50):
It's not easy to get back whatyou're entitled to.
You have to work for it, andthat just doesn't seem right.
How do we fix that?

Doug Quinn (22:58):
I don't necessarily like the gambling analogy with
insurance or investment.

But it is a gamble.

Doug Quinn (23:04):
But I will say this the guy sitting out front on the
boardwalk hawking, you know,like hey, come in, make a
million dollars, you know that'sa different person than the
dealer and the person who'ssupposed to pay you out your
chips, the people you know, allthe TV commercials and flow and
the gecko and all this stuff, oryour local agent, who is a
decent person and does, you know, volunteer in the community,

(23:27):
and you do see them in thegrocery store on Saturday.
They want that policy to payjust as much as you because they
got to look you in the eye andthey believe it's going to pay.
But your agent and they do not,and the Gecko and Flo don't pay
your claims, they don't handleyour claims.
That's a whole other departmentthat in many cases isn't even
part of your insurance company.

(23:48):
It's a third party TPA, thirdparty administrator that they
hired to handle their claims.
It's an engineering firm andthat's where we see a lot of the
crime occur.
There's check writer bias onthe part of these companies and
the way we fix it is byenforcement, is by a deterrent.
We have to have, you know,these actual people have to be

(24:09):
investigated and prosecuted.
Handcuffs so fast.
Your head would spin.
If the insurance company spends, spills $20,000 for you by
changing a report, or one of thevendors they've hired does it,
they need to go to jail as well,and that's not what we're

(24:30):
seeing happening.

Yeah, that's why I like the gambling analogy.
Where I think it works is onlybecause you just don't know
what's going to happen.
You're just you, you.
You throw your money downhoping you're going to win.
But with insurance it's almostlike they have a plan to make it
as difficult as possible.
I've dealt with this withhealth insurance.
I've dealt with it on smallerclaims, I've had flooding, but

(24:53):
nothing like what you've livedthrough.
And it's always that feeling ofyou feel like you're a criminal
trying to pull something onthem, when you're really just
trying to get what you thoughtyou were entitled to when you
were paying them all that money.

Doug Quinn (25:06):
Right and you're not .
You know there is no winning.
It's a contractual obligation.
It's for you to get what you'vepaid for.
You paid for years and decadessending checks in.
You never had a problem.
Now, when it's time for you toget reimbursed for a legitimate
loss, all of a sudden there'sproblems.
And when you say there's a plan, you are correct.
There is a plan and I you knowthere's a right.

(25:28):
Here in Jersey there's a Rutgerslaw professor named Jay Feynman
who wrote a book called DelayDeny Defend and he specifically
lays out the plan that theinsurance companies hired a
consultant firm, a reallyhigh-edge consultant firm, and
said you know it's a flat market, how do we juice our profits up
?
And one of the things they didwas they focused in on the

(25:49):
claims department as a profitcenter.
You know, insurance is azero-sum solution.
If I pay you a dollar or I losea dollar, how do I not pay you
that dollar?
Or how do I only pay you 50cents on that dollar?
And you know the strategy whichhas been defined as delay deny
defend actually is a plan.
They've actually used it totrain their claims personnel.
There is a PowerPoint out therethat specifically shows how to

(26:12):
do that and it's a problembecause it went from.
You know, how are we in thebusiness of demnifying people
for losses or making surethey're made whole for
everything they're entitled toto?
How do we put corporate profitsahead of the welfare of our
consumers?

So in a perfect world for them, you might've
gone away after a couple ofyears just because you would
have realized, eh, I got to moveon.
And that's what they hope.
A lot of people do is just moveon.

Doug Quinn (26:41):
And most people do, because that's they call that
and they've actually donestudies.
You know it's calledcapitulation where after a
certain period of time six ornine months the average person
you just want to find just giveme whatever.
You know.
I've I've saw it as a financialadvisor, people who had
lawsuits, and a lot of the ideaswith these physical injury
lawsuits are you know, theystretch it out.

(27:03):
They stretch it out for threeand five years.
So if you, you might start outbeing like I'm not settling for
less than $10 million, go liveon disability for five years and
see what happens and you'llsettle for, you know, $12 and a
half a tuna for sandwich.
I mean that because people justcan't take it anymore.
It is a living nightmare andyou wind up neglecting so many

(27:25):
other areas of your life.
You neglect your kids, youneglect your relationship, you
neglect your job and the cost ishuge to fight one of the most
powerful industries in thecountry.
It is a big, big cost and it'san incredible commitment and the
average person is not suited tohave that fight.

Yeah, and my state just did something which I
think is just.
It makes me sick to think about, although they defend it is if
you have to sue your insurancecompany, you no longer get
attorney's fees.
So now these guys can bully youinto court, knowing if you win
you still won't have enoughmoney to fix your house because
you're not going to pay the guyyou had to drag in.
And the insurance industryactually defends that as being

(28:07):
good for the consumer becauseit'll stop litigation.
To me it just screws the guywho's a victim.

Doug Quinn (28:13):
It has done absolutely zero to stop
litigation.
It has done absolutely zero tostop the premiums from going up.
I mean, this was the bigpromise because Florida
especially, you know premiumswere going up.
Premiums are going up.
It's these greedy lawyers.
And we kept asking you know,look, I don't like lawyers any

(28:34):
much as anybody else.
I have some personal friendswho are lawyers.
I respect for them, but as acategory, I think the insurance
industry landed on that.
Who do people hate almost asmuch as insurance companies?
Lawyers.
Let's blame it all on them.
And it's frivolous litigation.
We kept saying OK, well, ifyou're a plaintiff's attorney
and you only get paid if you winthe case, how does it help you

(28:57):
to file an illegitimate case?
How does it help you If theconsumer doesn't get paid?
You don't get paid, it's acontingency payment.
So, and then no one can explain.
Give me the statistics.
How many cases in Florida werethrown out because they were
flivolent?
How many cases were dismissedbecause they were just unjust
and had no factual grounds?

(29:17):
No one will answer thatquestion because, again, it's
not to their advantage.
And then, since they took awayyour right to recover your legal
fees, you know if you sue yourinsurance company and they are
found to have illegitimatelycheated you on a claim that
shouldn't come out of yourpocket.
That should come out of theirpocket.
But you know the end result isthey took that away and and even

(29:41):
the insurance commissioner ofFlorida has made a statement
that said litigation was neverthe sole reason for premiums
going up.
Litigation was never the solereason for all these companies
going under.
Not a single company has beencited as having excessive or
frivolous litigation as a reasonwhy it went under.
And, by the way, they'reclaiming victory because six or

(30:04):
so new insurance companies camein after that law went away, but
some of them were already onthe drawing board before and I
don't think it had anything todo with that law.
I think it was the fact thatyour insurance premiums doubled.
And if you double the cost of alatte, starbucks franchises are
gonna trip over themselves tocome to Florida and open up a
Starbucks franchise.

(30:24):
That's just the way it goes.
It has increased.
They caught some of the statelegislature.
A state legislator was involvedin opening an insurance company
and he's sending emails out toother legislators saying hey,
it's a really good environmentnow to come in and make profits
on insurance.
And, by the way, since that lawwent through, we've had several
insurance companies just in thelast month or two file for 50%

(30:47):
rate increases.

Yeah, it's insane what people are paying and I
was complaining because Ithought mine went up and was too
expensive.
But then I see other peoplethat are paying way more than
what we're paying and we'reconfident we have a company that
actually would be on our sideif push came to shove.
I mean, we all hope that, but Ijust think them doing that is
just I don't know how.

(31:09):
I know how you hold themaccountable.
You vote them out, but fromwhat I hear, the lobbying
industry gives money to bothsides, so the side in power just
looks like the bad guys.

Doug Quinn (31:19):
Well, you know, again, I don't necessarily want
to look at sides, because Ithink there's there's good and
bad people on both sides, but Ido think in Florida, much of the
political leadership has takena lot of money from the
insurance industry and and look,there may be people who are
voting for that, these bills,that think it's the right thing
because they're getting poundedby.

(31:41):
You know, this is wrong.
This is what's happening.
It's all this frivolouslitigation and it's what we
really see happening in Florida.
Much of this is these smallcompanies that are owned by
hedge funds, private equityfunds, anchored offshore, and
they're hiring their owncorporate affiliates to drain
money out of the insurancecompany and show a loss, and

(32:03):
then they're paying excessive Imean egregious executive
compensation, ownershipdividends.
They're basically bankruptingthese companies by draining all
the assets out.
Much of it looks very much likecorporate embezzlement to me.

Now, what do you think when you look at an area?
We were back in Mexico Beachlooking at how they've rebuilt
that area.
An expert we talked to theresaid people actually fought to
have the standards loweredbecause they thought they were
building it too high a code thatwas stopping people from coming
in and developing.
But they're building mostlywood houses on pylons that are

(32:39):
elevated and we talked to someexperts that said this is a
disaster waiting to happen.
When you see a place that'swiped out and they're not
rebuilding to a standard thatwould survive, what wiped them
out, what comes to your mind?

Doug Quinn (32:53):
I'll tell you, we were in Hurricane Michael
helping out.
We were in Mexico Beach andI'll tell you, it's not a
disaster waiting to happen, it'sa disaster that already
happened because that beach waslittered with stick, built
houses on wooden pilings thatwere wiped out.
You know, there's just littleshreds of the house on top of
wooden pilings.

(33:13):
So you never, you know, rebuildin the same place that is
suffering the same risk, withthe same construction methods.
I mean, when I rebuilt my househere, I built a 10 feet in the
same place that is suffering thesame risk, with the same
construction methods.
I mean, when I rebuilt my househere, I built a 10 feet in the
air and I would not be able tolive here if that wasn't the
case.
And we tell people you know,when we go into areas you've got

(33:35):
to do something different.
If you rebuild the same kind ofproperty in the same kind of a
risk zone, you're going to getthe same results.
You're playing roulette.
And when you put your head onthe pillow at night, you know it
and you're not going to sleep.
Well, you know.
Again, we see a lot of peoplewith anxiety issues.
Even after a storm like that,when there's a heavy rainstorm,

(33:56):
people start getting anxiety.
We see that in communities.
It's a community trauma thatthey're experiencing.
So whereas the emotionally thatcomes out, but if you say
intellectually, well, guess what?
You know, my house isreinforced concrete, I built it
up in the air for flood, Iprotect it against wind, I
protect against fire if I'm in afire zone to make sure, because

(34:22):
if you're going to go back andlive in the same place, there's
nothing wrong with that withinreason.
But at the same time you bettermake sure you mitigate that you
don't have to go through thesame thing again.
And I have very little sympathyfor this system where we just
keep rebuilding the same riskytypes of construction in the
same risky areas and in the endyou know it's the taxpayer who's
going to come in later and bailpeople out.

Well, yeah, and sadly we see that throughout
Florida.
That was.
Another big issue in the filmis there's a lot of areas in
Fort Myers, in Pasco County, upin the Panhandle where they're
building huge apartmentcomplexes.
There's one a mile from myhouse, a couple miles from my
house, four buildings, woodframe, right on the bay.
That are apartments and I'vehad people say, yeah, that could
probably survive a category two, maybe a three, but if a bigger

(35:07):
hurricane comes in or ifthere's a fire or anything
really bad happens, it's goingto get wiped out.
And those are people thatobviously aren't affording
owning a house.
They're renting.
Everything they have isprobably in that apartment.

Doug Quinn (35:18):
Right, and that's the idea that we, the way that
we look at mitigation, it shouldbe to the level of national
defense, because it is nationaldefense.
You know we have to look at thethreat to our population just
from what's going on with.
You know, if you're in an areawith fire or flood, you have to

(35:39):
make sure you build to whateverthe existing peril is in your
area.
And we've got to stop stickingour heads in the sand, because I
see this all the time.
I constantly talk to people.
We've never had a tornado herebefore.
We've never had a flood herebefore.
Our hurricane has never hitthis area has never burned
before.
I hear that from people allyear long in different cat zones
, just like my experience.

(36:00):
This property has never floodedsince 1957.
Well, guess what?
That doesn't count anymore.
All that, it's a different gameand you have to say here's the
legitimate risk and I bettermake sure that I protect my
property and my family from thatrisk.

Well, one of the arguments I hear against that is
and Hank Oving, who was in mylast film, the Last House
Standing.
He was big at helping redesignsome things in New Jersey after
Sandy.
He said how much can you reallybunker your entire community,
help you get your feet on theground quicker, but for every
person to build a concrete blockhouse that could withstand a

(36:46):
category five he didn'tnecessarily think was realistic.
Would you say, if you can't dothat, you just shouldn't live
there.

Doug Quinn (36:52):
Yes, absolutely.
If you cannot protect yourselfand your family from the peril,
then you should not live in aperilous area.
Now here's the challenge whendo you go?
That has no peril whatsoever.
That has no, you know local.
There's some kind of a risk.
In many places, or places likethis, where we had a fairly
stable environment, we didn'thave significant risk, you know.

(37:14):
So where do you draw the line?
You draw the line at what'sreasonable and what is a basic
scenario, Like there's got to besome community mitigation.
That goes on.
There's got to be some.
You know, after Sandy there wasall this talk.
We had had a big storm onNor'easter in, I think, 1993,
the early 90s, and they said,all right, here's what we're

(37:35):
going to do.
There's all these proactivethings after a loss, a disaster,
we're going to redline onplaces that shouldn't be built.
If you have a house there,that's fine, but you're done
building there.
If that house gets wiped out ina storm, that's it.
It's going to be blue acres.
There'll be no more building onthat the next time around.
We're not going to insure you,we're not going to bail you out

(37:57):
with public money.
You go elsewhere.
And of course that neverhappened.
After a year you never heardanother word.
After Sandy, there was going tobe a seawall from one end of
the state to the other.
That never happened.

Yeah, I mean there's always a lot of talk.
I think people just take therisk.
There's a lot of houses in myneighborhood that are two or
three feet elevation when thestorm elevation is 11 feet here.
That's the flood elevation.
It's crazy to me that peopletake those risks and I see some
people just remodeling thosehomes.
They're not elevating them.
I know that's very expensive todo, but I think it's just the

(38:35):
gamble that people take becausethey don't think it's really
going to happen.

Doug Quinn (38:39):
And now you are talking, you're using the word
gamble appropriately, becausethat's exactly it, look.

I knew I could work that in positively
somewhere.

Doug Quinn (38:47):
You feel better, you feel vindicated.

I do.
Thank you, did you win?
Okay, I won.

Doug Quinn (38:52):
My house here.
I only had to raise five feet,I raised a 10.
And what's the situation withthat is, you know, we call our
house the Stairmaster.
You know, careful as possibleand as prudent as possible, we

(39:17):
made sure we had hurricanestraps.
I make sure that I have.
My windows are rated forcertain level of wind and
there's a sweet spot there whereit becomes, you know, because
certain things like if you're adirect hit by a tornado, you're
a direct hit by a fire, You're adirect hit by a hurricane.
You know many structures are notgoing to survive, but we see a

(39:38):
lot of structures that areoutside of the actual cone of
disaster but are impacted andthey could have avoided that.
You know, in fires you couldjust have had some degree, a
30-foot defensible space.
You could have, you know,plants that are not, that are
fire resistant for yourlandscaping.
You could have covering overthe openings into that house so

(40:00):
that embers don't get in.
You could have a fire ratedroof and something like that
could be the difference of yourhouse burning to the ground and
having nothing, or your housesurviving a fire and not having
a problem.
And it's similar with wind andflood events.
You know, am I prettycomfortable being 10 feet in the
air if there's a flood?
Yes, I am.
But my community, to speak toyour question, has to also pitch

(40:23):
in, because what good does ithelp me if my house is above the
flood but my whole neighborhoodis underwater?
I can't even get to my house.

Yeah, that's definitely true.
So tell us about the UnitedSurvivors Disaster Relief, the
group that you were part of.

Doug Quinn (40:39):
We're a look.
It's a volunteer only,nonprofit.
We just say it's a very, veryexpensive hobby.
Nobody gets paid.
We just all volunteer.
And it was started by stormvictims after Sandy because
people had shown us so muchkindness.
Afterwards, you know, peoplehad kids from Mormons from Utah

(41:02):
come and help me, you know,clean up my house.
I had people from college,students from Appalachian State
University in North Carolina,come help.
We had people send donations offood and clothing and you know
we really didn't think anybodyliked New Jersey and clothing
and you know we really didn'tthink anybody liked New Jersey.
It was very touching and it hada big mental effect, an
emotional effect.

(41:22):
It is good to get the love ofthe nation because you tend to
suffer in silos.
You're all alone.
Even though my neighbor mighthave went through the same thing
, here, I am all alone, buriedin this.
So to have people from theoutside show you that kindness
meant so much.
And when it came to, probablyabout five years after the storm
, many of us weren't even homeyet.
I certainly wasn't.

(41:42):
But we saw Hurricane Harveydecimate Houston and Texas and
we were like we have to dosomething.
I mean we just, you know, weput a post on Facebook.
We threw a bunch of stuffdonations into our private
vehicles.
We drove 27 hours down toHouston and a couple of things
Number one, it was veryimportant for us to pay forward

(42:05):
and number two, we found it tobe very therapeutic.
It was disturbing, you know,walking, driving into the
neighborhood and everyone'spossessions were pushed out on
the front for the garbage tocome.
I remember that day.
That was very hard to watchEverything I own gets thrown out
of the front yard and cartedaway.
But it was also therapeutic tobe able to take what we had

(42:25):
learned and help people out intheir darkest moment.
And it just sort of blossomedfrom there.
We didn't have a name at first,you know, we didn't have any
kind of tax status.
We just threw stuff in our vansand drove to disasters.
And then it became.
Well, you know, I had one of myfinancial planning clients give
us a large donation.
I wanted her to get a taxdeduction, so we formed as a

(42:45):
501c3.
And then they were seeing thepieces.
You know, not just the suppliesthat they need, but they need
degrees.
Like what did we need?
You know, I needed someeducation on disaster trauma and
where I could seek help andeven acknowledging that it

(43:08):
exists.
You know we also needed somebodywho had lived through it to
give us a hug and say it's goingto be OK.
You know you can get throughthis, because that's sometimes
the most important things we do.
We're just in there givingpeople a hug and say I've been
through it, I've survived it.
You will too.
We can give you some tips onhow to do that.

(43:28):
You know, we've actually wrotea document called Eight Tips for
Coping and Thriving ThroughCrisis.
That was just based on ourexperience from coming through
all this, and that kind ofpeer-to-peer
survivor-to-survivor therapeuticconnection is so important.
So then we added that to it.
And then we found out, you know,it was really important for us

(43:49):
to do community organizingbecause if you, you know, the
tendency is not to bringstakeholders to the table,
there's a lot of money on thetable.
There's a lot of money on thetable.
There's a lot of insurancemoney and federal money, and the
people who wind up gettinginvolved and profiting
handsomely off it are thepolitically connected people
from your state capital, andthey're the ones that actually

(44:10):
will plan your recovery.
And do they necessarily haveyour best interest at heart?
Maybe not.
So we're big on pushing peopleto do community organizing and
make sure that survivors arebrought to the table when we
plan the rebuilding of ourcommunities.
One of the sayings we have isyou know, no decisions about us
without us.
And the other thing we say is,if you don't have a seat at the

(44:32):
table, you're probably on themenu, and we understand that.
So that, so you know again,there's another piece that we're
doing.
We found out there's a lot oflike us people that in the midst
of their darkest moment, lifttheir face out of the mud and
say, how can I help my neighbor,how can I help my community?
And we isolate who those peopleare and then we will fund them.

(44:54):
We set them up with anon-profit accountant here in
new jersey and we allow them toform an organization that is a
501c3 organization and they cannow raise money tax deductible,
meaning people who donate tothem can deduct it off their
taxes.
And it's sort of a teach aperson to fish kind of a thing
where now those organizationswho will be effective?

(45:14):
If you give one of those smallorganizations of survivors in
the cat zone itself a dollar,they will stretch it like $10.
So you know, we look to again.
It was a thing that we hadlearned how important it was,
and then we carry that forwardinto other disaster zones and
get that experience out topeople.

Yeah, I mean.
Disasters always bring out twothings the best of people you
see the heroes, the people thatcome to everybody's aid and it
also brings out the worst ofpeople.
That then see innocent peoplethat are damaged and then try to
prey on them.
So it's great to be giving thema lifeline like this.
Tell me about the AmericanPolicyholder Association and

(45:54):
what you do with that.

Doug Quinn (45:56):
The APA was formed because of the fraud that we saw
happen in Superstorm Sandy.
What we saw in Sandy was theinsurance companies were hiring
engineering companies and youknow some of them did a fine job
and some of them we caught themchanging reports where you know
it said an engineer on theground was like this the house
was damaged by storm forces andthe engineering firm would now

(46:19):
just add the word not this housewas not damaged.
So we caught them side by sidecreating fraudulent reports.
What we did different in Sandy2,000 of us had sued the
insurance companies laughed atus because there were 144,000
people, you know claims,households that were impacted,
2,000 people suing big deal.

(46:40):
But what we did different inSandy is we had the New York
Attorney General raid anengineering firm and seize all
their files and they went backseveral weeks later and walked
one of their executives out inhandcuffs and that one criminal
arrest changed everything,because and that one criminal
arrest changed everythingbecause, you know, we were able
to get the federal government toopen up 144,000 claims.

(47:02):
We were able to get $350million paid out to people who
had been cheated on their claimsand that was a deterrent, you
know.
We know that there's a lot ofpeople.
Like I said, many people in theinsurance industry are doing a
great job.
They're there to help you.
They take pride in helping you.
It means a lot to them.
But there are some people notso and basically you know

(47:22):
they're shaving 70, 80, 90percent off our claims and
Florida is now investigating it.
We are hoping that they give afair chance to consumers and

(47:46):
make arrests in this, just likethey would have somebody
stealing from the insurancecompany.
We're hoping that they're fairabout it.
But basically, what happens ifthey say, well, if I make this
change big deal, my company getssued, I'm protected behind the
corporate veil, they've gotlawyers for all that, no big
deal.
But if we change thatcalculation to say, if I change

(48:06):
this report and I cheat anAmerican family out of their
most valuable asset, their home,I could get walked out of here
in handcuffs tomorrow.
That is a deterrent to crime.
So that's what we're pushingfor and of course it requires
the cooperation of lawenforcement.
But we are the first ever what'scalled an SIU Special

(48:28):
Investigation Unit.
Every insurance company has onethat if the people because
people do commit fraud againstinsurance companies regularly,
so they have.
These SIUs are basically like adetective bureau.
If somebody sees red flags,they send it to the SIU.
The SIU investigates it.
If they find out that, yes,somebody's cheating the
insurance company, they'll sendit to prosecutors.

(48:48):
And now we are the onlyorganization in the country that
does it the other way around Ifit looks like somebody on the
insurer side is cheating aconsumer, they turn the case
over to us and then we will ourinvestigators.
We have an SIU of long-term 20,30-year investigators,
detectives run by a formerprosecutor who will look at it,

(49:10):
and if it looks like fraud wascommitted or it should at least
be investigated, we turn it overto public prosecutors.
Here's the thing the consumershould win every time.
The consumer is who pays forthis?
The consumer who pays theinsurance premiums that fund all
the TV commercials.
You see all of the politicallobbying that goes around to
protect the insurance company.

(49:31):
The consumer pays that withtheir premiums.
The taxes that fund the publicprosecutors are paid by
taxpayers and consumers, and inthe end, all of this should be
done to help the consumer, who'sat the most vulnerable point in
their life, having justsuffered a significant loss, and
everybody needs to put theirown self-interest aside and come
forward.
So you know, for me to be happy, that would have to be like 99%

(49:56):
of the time, not like everyonce in a while we get a victory
.
The reality is, if you'repaying your premiums, and that's
funding that insurancecompany's SIU, and you're paying
your taxes, and that's fundingyour public prosecutor,
shouldn't at least 50% of theefforts go to protecting you and
your family from beingdefrauded on your insurance

(50:18):
policy by either the insurancecompany employees or the vendors
that they hire?
Shouldn't you get at least halfof that money to protect you,
not just the insurance company?

Yeah, you would think, but it almost makes too
much sense.
I mean you would.
I don't know how people sleepat night, taking advantage of
people when they're at theirmost vulnerable.
I don't know how you could justreject that claim.
I don't know how you leavepeople hanging like that.
I mean it takes you experienceit more than me.
How do these people sleep atnight?

Doug Quinn (50:49):
Justification is a big part of it, and they're also
trained.
They're trained to fit within asystem.
So and it's certain chokepoints at the system where the
fraud is occurring, it might notnecessarily be the insurance
company claims department, itmight be the third party
administrator they hired, itmight be the engineering firm
they hired, or it might be theclaims department manager.

(51:11):
That is it.
But everyone else is doing abang up job.
But there's little choke pointsand there's a system that's
come in.
A lot of it is being doneautomatically with AI.
But there is something, there'sa theory in criminology.
There's a lot of theories incriminology that say why does
somebody like you and I, whowent to the same school, who

(51:32):
learned the same values of rightand wrong, who went to the same
church, we know right and wrong, what makes somebody go to work
and commit fraud like this, andhow do they sleep with
themselves?
And one of the theories issomething called the triangle of
fraud and explains why peoplego into the workplace and commit
fraud.
And it is basically it startswith like an unshareable
financial burden.

(51:52):
I need this job.
If they say we're losing moneyand there's layoffs, you know

(52:17):
no-transcript, you're a good guythey find a way to justify.
Well, consumers steal frompeople anyway.
Well, it's just a couple ofdollars, it's no big deal.
Well, you know, maybe you knowthis isn't legitimate damage.
There's always a justificationfactor and that's called the

(52:38):
triangle of fraud and, like Isay, there's systems at play
here that most people don'tunderstand.
Me, after being a financialadvisor in the insurance
industry for 30 years, had noidea of what really goes on
behind the scenes, and mostpeople, even people that have
worked in the insurance industrytheir whole adult lives, their
whole careers, really don'tunderstand a lot of this.

Much less to consume.
Let's leave people withsomething here that let's give
consumers or homeowners orrenters an action item.
What's the number one thingeverybody should be thinking
about when they buy, rent orlive in some place that could
potentially experience adisaster?

Doug Quinn (53:20):
Proactive mitigation , avoid the loss up front.
It is so much easier to spend acouple of extra dollars to
protect your property and yourfamily than it is to come in and
go through all this mess andfighting the insurance companies
and cleaning it up and losingall of your stuff.
I mean, it's just so much.

(53:41):
There's a study from I thinkthe Wharton School did it for
FEMA and it basically says forevery dollar spent on mitigation
, you save $6 on cleanup on theback end.
And it's not just a financialcalculation.
I can't begin to tell you theemotional trauma and the
heartache that myself, my familyand my neighbors all went

(54:04):
through.
And listen, maybe it would havebeen $20,000 to raise my house
before the storm.
And if you talked to me beforethe storm I would have been like
you're crazy, I don't have thatmoney, I can't do it.
It's too much.
If you tell me now and you giveme a time machine and I can go
back and spend $100,000 to raisethat house, I wouldn't think

(54:25):
twice about it.
I'd sell a kidney to do it toavoid what I went through for
seven years.
Mitigation is number one.
It is your personalresponsibility.
Don't wait till it's arequirement.
Don't wait till somebody talksyou into it.
Spend a couple of extra bucksand protect your property and
your family upfront and don't gothrough the mess.

(54:46):
Don't have to fight theinsurance company.
Don't have to replaceeverything you own.

Yeah, when I was trying to raise money for
different projects and I wouldgo to the concrete industry or
any of these people thatadvocate safety and safe
building, I would say you needto lay out the cost of not doing
it that way.
People complain it's tooexpensive.
Show them the other number,show them the number of this is
what happens if you put up thatstick frame house on the second

(55:11):
floor right by the water, versusjust spending a little more and
doing it the right way.
I think that you're right.
That's what it's going to taketo wake people up.

Doug Quinn (55:20):
Yeah, and they don't look.
We can't make people believersstorm by storm.
There's got to be an emphasisin the media, in government, in
just day-to-day conversation.
And unfortunately, you knowwe're relying well, I don't want
to say unfortunately, becauseyou know we're relying on, maybe
the townships and the codeenforcers and the state code

(55:40):
people to make the change andwe're also relying on the
construction industry to playalong.
But I'll tell you what I meanyou could make me a salesman for
any construction product onearth and I'll be a billionaire
because I can look you in theeye and tell you this needs to
be done.
Spend the extra money I canupsell all day long because it

(56:02):
is the right thing, and not forsomething that looks prettier,
but something that protects yourproperty and your family and
your possessions.

Yeah Well, hey, doug, thank you so much for
coming on today.
I know I've been bugging youfor a while.
I appreciate you taking thetime and I think people are
going to love seeing you inBuilt to Last Buyer Beware,
because you said a lot ofimportant things.
Really appreciate what you do.

Doug Quinn (56:22):
Thank you for getting the message out.
We appreciate it.

If you have a story about your house, good or
bad, I'd like to hear from you.
There's a contact form in theshow notes.
Fill it out, send it my way andyou might be a guest on an
upcoming episode.
Also, check out the link in.
Thanks for taking the time tolisten today.
I'll see you next time.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Ruin to Recovery A Survivor's Tale of Hurricane Sandy with Doug Quinn

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

From Ruin to Recovery A Survivor's Tale of Hurricane Sandy with Doug Quinn

24/7 News: The Latest